A toolkit for the systematic analysis of patent data to assess a potentially disruptive technology

Technologies can be characterised through exhibited patent characteristics. Previous work has developed a prototype toolkit for characterising potentially disruptive technologies using patent indicators, based on patent data relating to Light Emitting Polymers. This paper describes developing the toolkit to be applied to science-intensive technologies which are visible to horizonscanning, but not yet widely developed such that opportunities for application and commercialisation may still be unclear, to produce an output score indicative of disruptive potential. A methodology is developed for characterising technologies through patent data analysis and using patent data emergence profiles to determine a point in the technology lifecycle which would have fulfilled the following criteria: (a) The technology would have been visible to horizon-scanning (b) The technology would not have been widely patented (c) The technology would appear to be about to undergo accelerated growth Technologies fulfilling these criteria are judged to be visible, high potential value, but not widely developed and thus susceptible to intervention and investment. Training and test technologies, including disruptive and non-disruptive technologies, are identified in order to enable the toolkit to be calibrated and validated. By selecting the point in the lifecycle of each technology which would fulfil (a)-(c) above, and retrospectively applying the toolkit, a scoring mechanism was developed to train and validate the toolkit to enable reliable indication and contra-indication of disruptive potential.